NFL uncertainty slowing Curry’s negotiations with Hawks

Every season there’s a rush of late signings by first-round NFL draft picks in the hours before training camps start, but this year is particularly slow with just seven of the league’s 32 top selections under contract as of midday Thursday.

That environment raises questions for Seattle Seahawks first-rounder Aaron Curry, who is among the unsigned majority on the eve of the start of Seattle’s training camp at Renton’s VMAC facility.

Aaron Curry (left) shares a laugh with fellow linebacker Leroy Hill during one of the Seahawks’ offseason minicamps. (AP photo)

Seahawks GM Tim Ruskell said he’s pushing hard to get Curry into camp by Friday’s opening session, given the team’s plan to insert the Wake Forest product immediately into a starting spot at outside linebacker.

But he acknowledged that uncertainty over the league’s future labor agreement beyond 2010 and the fact several high-priced quarterbacks (Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez) are among the early signees is making it difficult this year.

The New York Jets signed Sanchez — who went one spot after Curry at No. 5 — to a five-year, $60 million deal with $28 million guaranteed. But the Seahawks don’t want to get caught comparing Curry to a quarterback’s value.

“There aren’t a lot of precedents to go by right now,” Ruskell said. “We’ll discount the quarterback deals. They’ll say, ‘Nope, there it is.’ So therein lies the rub of where the deal will get done. But we’re optimistic. It’s been good talks so far.

“We absolutely want him in by tomorrow to get going. We don’t want to miss a day. Here’s a guy we’re projecting to start and that would hurt him.”

The NFL’s uncertain labor future has particular impact on high first-round picks like Curry, Ruskell said.

“There are different rules for the uncapped year for next year,” he said. “There have been different rules put in to try to stop this from happening when they were originally put in. It’s just made it very difficult when you talk about the 30-percent rule where you can’t increase your salaries more than 30 percent year to year, so you can’t stuff a lot of money on the back end.

“Those kind of rules have made it very difficult for us, those teams in the top 10. It’s just very restrictive and it’s made it very much harder.

“There’s a feeling of panic and then the quarterback deals … a lot of factors are adding to these not getting done,” he said.

Yet, like every season, Ruskell believes once a few players sign, the domino effect will lead to others coming to quick agreement.

“Yes, you’ll start to see that,” Ruskell said. “When a guy has a ceiling that is a few picks ahead of them and there’s a guy below them, then at least you have a range. And if you have a range, you can negotiate off of that.”

The Seahawks are in a difficult position because Curry figures to play such a significant role immediately that it would behoove them to get him in camp from the start. That is a negotiating weapon for the player, to some degree, though Curry surely is eager to get in quickly and give himself the best opportunity to succeed as well.

Ruskell said it helps that Curry was in for all the off-season camps and has a general knowledge of the base defense.

“We’d hate for him to miss days, but yes, at least he has that. He has the base in,” the Seahawks GM said. “It’s just we’re asking so much of the guy. We’re going to want him to do a rush package, he’s going to be asked to be in there for coverage. We’re asking a lot of this guy, so we really don’t want him to miss anything if we can help it. But we’ll deal with whatever it is. We’re not going to panic.

“We’re not going to do a lesser deal because of that and we’ll try to keep the coaches away from our door, because we know what they’ll tell us. But we just have to do what’s right by the team.”